


you're shaking my confidence

by justdoityoufucker



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Disaster Gay Hatake Kakashi, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Multiple, Pre-Canon, Sappy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 14:11:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17102093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/pseuds/justdoityoufucker
Summary: The concept of soulmates--well, it really isn’t really a concept, but a concrete fact of life. But to Kakashi, the idea of having a soulmate has always been abstract and far-off. Of course, if one has a mark they must have a soulmate, but his--it’s too damn complete, that’s what it is.





	you're shaking my confidence

The concept of soulmates--well, it really isn’t really a  _ concept,  _ but a concrete fact of life. But to Kakashi, the idea of having a soulmate has always been abstract and far-off. Of course, if one has a mark they must have a soulmate, but his--

it’s too damn complete, that’s what it is. An entire goddamn wolf, stretched out over his heart like it’s running, wild and free, perfect and complete.

_ Complete _ . It should be missing half of its body, or something, but it’s not and if that isn’t indicative of his own completeness in isolation, he doesn’t know what it is. He certainly has never met anyone who is his soulmate, and he would have known. Or at least he likes to think he would have known.

In any case, he’s thinking about soulmates because he’s been traveling non-stop for eight hours and has to think about  _ something _ so he doesn’t damn well fall asleep while walking. It’s happened before. Though soulmates is probably a bad choice, because now he’s just making himself way too morose considering he’s going to have to talk to the Hokage when he gets back to Konoha.

Goddamn it all. Nothing is good, everything sucks, and Kakashi really doesn’t want to get back to Konoha so he pauses for a moment to punch a tree. Gotta go back, anyway, he tells himself, wiping his hands off on his flak jacket, morose.

-

He probably could’ve delayed, he considers when he finally reaches Konoha, but it’s too late to run away. The Hokage is tied up in meetings and diplomatic things, but there’s a note at the gate desk for him, telling him that he has been assigned a genin team to test (as the Hokage had been threatening, again, for months) and he can pick up the pertinent information and the files on his team from their former teacher. One Umino Iruka; the name doesn’t sound familiar, but Kakashi has never really paid attention to the Academy.

The Hokage might not be in, but Kakashi does have to stop by the Tower to drop off his mission report and pick up his payment. He does it as quickly as possible, and then it’s just the question of finding this Umino Iruka, who according to time in general and what little he  _ does _ know about the Academy, should still be at the school. It’s mid-afternoon (and good god he’s been awake far too long) and school must’ve just let out from all of the children swarming the streets.

He fights the flow of children to get into the Academy, feels extremely lost but eventually pinpoints what must be the teacher’s lounge. Maybe using his Sharingan. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. He works with what he has.

So he plows through the children, and hopes that this Umino person doesn’t try small-talk with him.

-

Iruka is ready to be done. With work, existence, whatever, he’s  _ exhausted _ and stretched way too thin with his myriad of jobs and other responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities being the folder he’s currently glaring at, hoping it will vaporize into nothingness if he stares at it hard enough. Suzume had the misfortune of commenting on it and earning the brunt of his glare so the rest of the teachers are now leaving him alone.

Mission files that the Hokage needs him to comment on for sealing evaluations. As if he doesn’t have enough work with school winding down and the promise of at least two missions during the month-long break. Ugh.

He picks the folder up, throws it into his filing cabinet, and slams the drawer shut. Bullshit and garbage. Not to mention the files under it, the files that he’s supposed to be handing off to one Hatake Kakashi in regard to three of his freshly-tested and graduated pregenin.

Listen: Iruka knows Hatake. Yeah, he’s never actually met him or talked with him or worked with him but the guy has a reputation. And a history at the Academy, a history that involves failing his only other genin team and threatening to do the same to any future teams. Just great, of course that’s his luck to be saddled with.

And he silently curses the Hokage again, because it’s all his fault.

Anyway. Breathe, in, out, relax, focus back on the work at hand.

A polite cough interrupts him on the breathe-out step and he chokes on his own spit, but manages to at least partially pass it off as a cough.

“Can I help you?” he asks, and then he finds Hatake Kakashi standing next to him. Ah, that answers that question.

“Files on the pre-genin?” Hatake sticks one hand out, expectantly.

Unsurprising, Iruka thinks, shuffles the files into a stack, hands them over. “If you have further questions, let me know,” Iruka says, just as professional as Hatake.

Hatake nods, takes the files. Leaves.

-

Neither of them notice at the time, but their fingers ever so lightly brush together in Iruka’s handing the files over to Kakashi. Ever so lightly, but enough.

-

Iruka’s finally home and the first thing he needs is a fucking shower and then probably alcohol. Oh, food, food would also be nice.

So he pulls his vest off, drops it unceremoniously on the floor of his bedroom. Shirt is next, and he collects sweatpants and the oversized, too-soft sweater that he can’t wear in public because it’s been permanently stained by one of Anko’s food experiments. Comfort sounds nice, after work, after Hatake Kakashi.

He blindly showers, forcing himself to be quick so he can eat and find something to drink and go to bed.

When he steps out, wipes off the mirror to get his hair in order, that’s when he notices it. Notices that the wolf he’s grown used to seeing on his chest is not alone anymore, but being followed by another, a little more lithe than the original, a little longer and leaner.

Oh,  _ shit _ , what the  _ fuck _ ,  _ who was it? When did it happen? _

Hair, forgotten. Steam and state of undress, forgotten. He grips the rim of the sink, leans forward. It wasn’t there that morning, nor when he had to change his shirt over the lunch break due to a nosebleed one of his students managed to get all over him. And Iruka looks up at the mirror, sudden, absolute understanding coming over him.

“Hatake.” He buries his face in his hands. Of course.

-

On the other side of Konoha, he makes the discovery at nearly the same time Iruka does, but doesn’t handle it anywhere near as well. In fact, he panics so badly he runs into the doorway of the bathroom (initially skidded through to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating and, no, the mirror confirmed he wasn’t) and hits his head hard enough that he knocks himself out for a couple minutes.

Waking up on the floor of his bathroom, though, does wonders to clear his head. Everything looks more logical from the floor, and he runs through the facts:

One, it’s definitely Iruka.

Two, there’s no way he can take this whole thing back.

Three, soulmates are a hand-wavey “fate” thing and as noted in point two, he can’t take it back, so he might as well make an effort to do things right before he finds himself mysteriously tripping in front of Iruka or meeting him randomly in the grocery store or something. His life is embarrassing enough.

Kakashi picks himself up, makes sure he didn’t give himself a black eye (no, but he does have a decent-sized lump on his forehead) straightens himself up as best he can. No time like the present, he thinks, and throws himself out the window.

-

One quick trip to the Tower personnel archive room tells him that Iruka lives in the chuunin dorms, and before he can second-guess himself, he goes.

Iruka is easy to find because the curtains are open and he’s buried in the middle of a massive pile of blankets, a large carton of ice cream in one of his hands, and a spoon in the other. He looks a little dismal, all told, but it’s endearing at the same time and the conflict of emotions happening in Kakashi’s gut is a lot to try and process.

Well, can’t hurt. He crawls up to Iruka’s window, knocks on it.

Iruka looks up, spoon in his mouth. They stare at each other for a few brief moments, and then he leans over and unlocks the window. Kakashi pushes it open, hops up to squat on it. They’re both silent for a few moments as Iruka sucks down the ice cream on his spoon, pulls it out of his mouth with a popping noise.

“Spoons in the drawer next to the fridge,” Iruka says. It breaks the ice; Kakashi kicks his shoes off, sets them on the side of the bed, goes and finds himself a spoon.

Iruka’s in the same spot when he returns, but scoots over a little bit, holds the carton out so Kakashi can scrape out a spoonful. Kakashi tugs his mask down, shoves the spoon in his mouth.

“So,” he says. Chocolate peanut butter; Iruka has good taste, “how long have you been a teacher?”

Iruka looks at him, laugh lines crinkling a little, smiling a little. And he answers him.

-

By the time Kakashi leaves and Iruka actually settles in bed (with a more reasonable amount of blankets piled on him), it’s three in the morning and he’s running on so much adrenaline and excitement that he knows he’s not going to be able to sleep for shit.

He has work in the morning. He isn’t really sure if he cares. He’s known Kakashi for probably twelve total hours, and he’s fine with it, the whole soulmate thing.

Anyway, it could definitely be someone worse.

-

Kakashi wakes up late and immediately has an existential crisis. That isn’t particularly of note because crises, existential or otherwise, are laughably common to him. The subject of the crisis, though, is.

He has a soulmate. He stayed at his soulmate’s house--his  _ bed _ \--for hours the night before. What the fuck, he’s not worthy of it, Iruka is too good a person, too morally upright, too decent to be stuck with him.

Really, why can’t the self-loathing wait until he’s at least eaten breakfast?

He flops over, rolling from his stomach to his back. Glances down to the two running wolves over his heart. He can always try to become worthy, he tells himself, tracing them with a light finger. He can always try.

-

Hatake Kakashi is losing his fucking touch.

Iruka arrives to finish up some paperwork after school has ended, at the end of the week, and learns that his soulmate, the same man who threatened to always fail the pre-genin given to him, has passed a team.

_ Passed a team _ . Iruka kind of wants to laugh because it’s just so bizarre, the entire week has been one strange event after another and nothing feels real anymore. But he doesn’t laugh, because Suzume and Ebisu are already looking at him like he’s grown a second head and escapes as soon as possible.

-

Kakashi is making an effort. A very concerted effort that is surprisingly hard for him to make but goddamn it he makes it.

Iruka is probably laughing at him, but he doesn’t care because he loves Iruka’s laugh. And he associates that laugh with kids, anyway, so the effort he’s making with his new genin team kind of overlaps with that.

All three of them are from civilian families, which is a little strange for Kakashi, at least at first, but it means he misses the gross inter-clan politics and kids thinking they already know everything. And he finds, somehow, that he likes these three scrappy kids who try twice as hard as their peers.

He’s turning sentimental, as he bemoans to Iruka one evening when they’re cuddling on his couch.

Iruka cranes his neck around, eyes him. “How so?”

“The kids,” he says, “I actually go out with Gai and not solely to bars. Asuma set up a jounin dinner and I actually went. Sometimes I think about your hair and how beautiful you are and I make myself cry.”

Iruka blinks at him. “You...think about how beautiful I am and make yourself cry?”

“Is there something weird about that?” Kakashi asks, obviously defensive. It’s not like he does it often, it’s just that he gets overwhelmed sometimes.

“That’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Iruka says after a beat, smiling and turning back to his book. It feels like the greatest of victories, somehow.

-

It’s been about ten months, and Iruka is fully in love. It--well obviously it makes sense because they’re soulmates and everything, but he’s surprised by how easily it’s happened. Who would expect Hatake Kakashi to ever be capable of being soft? Not Iruka.

But he is, and he’s trying so hard and soulmate or not Iruka would love him. It’s many things piled together. How he’s taken to the kids that make up his first ever genin team, how he makes Iruka bento and occasionally appears outside of the Academy just to wave at him while he’s teaching. How he loves being the little spoon to Iruka’s big spoon.

Well, unexpected things have become the norm, and when Kakashi asks if he can stay over, bedroom eyes in full effect, despite it being the night before the chuunin exams (which he has submitted his team to), and Iruka accepts.

-

Kakashi has seen much worse days, he considers from where he’s draped on top of Iruka, ignoring the fact that the chuunin exam starts in less than twelve hours. The solid ache in his lower back and thighs is testament to that, and Iruka’s hand skims down from his shoulders, rests on the curve of his ass. They’re both delightfully boneless and sweaty, the worst of it wiped off on the sheets, and Kakashi doesn’t want to leave Iruka’s bed ever again.

The hand on his ass rises, brushes the worst of Kakashi’s fringe out of his face. “Good?” Iruka asks, still a little breathless.

“The best,” Kakashi manages to groan.

That earns a soft chuckle, and Kakashi looks up, meets Iruka’s eyes. He looks so fond, so soft. “I’m glad you’re in my life, Kakashi,” he says.

Was Kakashi’s brain working? Not at that moment. He feels like anything he could possibly say in reply is completely beyond his grasp and before he even realizes what he’s doing, he props himself up on his elbows, says, “Will you marry me?”

It takes a moment for his brain to catch up to his mouth, and by the time it does, Iruka’s mouth (which had initially made a delightful “O” shape) has spread into a wide smile, and he throws his head back in laughter. “Oh my god, yes,” he says in the midst of the laughter, “we should probably take a shower first, though.”

Kakashi kind of wants to sink through the apartment into the dirt and never be seen again, but at the same time he’s kind of thankful to his own subconscious because he definitely wants to marry Iruka and he meant that. And apparently he says all that out loud, because Iruka barks out another laugh, says, “So was I, you dork. C’mon, shower.”

He lets Iruka push him up, lift him like he weighs nothing and deposit him in the shower after turning it on. Shock, probably, is making him completely inable of moving or doing anything other than leaning back against Iruka.

“Iruka,” he finally rouses himself enough to say, and the hand on his left shoulder squeezes, just a little. Acknowledgement. “Thank you.” A lot goes unsaid in that; thank you for sticking with me, thank you for being here, thank you for loving me.

Iruka carefully turns him around, presses a kiss to his lips. Smiling, he says, “Well, you’ve got me forever, now. And thank fuck I get to keep you.”

That earns a smile, genuine and wide, and he doesn’t protest when Iruka hurries him out of the shower, because they’re going to get married.

**Author's Note:**

> ok honestly what do y'all expect from me at this point  
> [twitter here](https://twitter.com/lutzaussi/)


End file.
